Saturday, March 29, 2008

Welcome to our four new members. We now have 427 members of our group. I am not actively soliciting new people, but they are finding us on the Internet when they try to call Airleaf and the phones/websites are down. We are happy to help any victims who find our group.

I am not actively soliciting new members because this group is now large enough to bring about enough action with the membership we have. Some of you have been with me since my earliest organizing days back in August 2007. You have taken all the steps to get this case moving, moving, moving—and it is moving! I am in touch with both the civil authorities and federal authorities, and I have confidence that we will see some justice in the near future. When we do, I'll be traveling to Indiana hoping to meet some other authors who will join me for any legal court proceedings. I am a big believer in the accused having to meet their accusers, so I am hoping that as many of you as possible will be joining me. I will keep you posted as soon as any of this is taking place.

Our efforts in pursuing justice are very important because there are other companies out there are who practicing predatory publishing. This means that there are new victims all the time. It is my intention for our group to serve as a warning to anyone who thinks that he/she is above the law when it comes to publishing fraudulence. Too many of our authors are kind and trusting souls who were victimized once and now find themselves being victimized again. If you are in that situation, please write to me because I am compiling this new information and helping authors retrieve back their money. Please feel free to write to me before you make any decisions about republishing your book if you want my honest input and research. I'm happy to help you. As I have stated before, I don't want to do anything publicly to divert the attention away from our goal of seeing justice with the Airleaf case. However, privately and behind the scenes I am more than happy to help. Once our Airleaf case is resolved, then I will feel more willing to stop any other criminals who are participating in this unconscionable crime.

The requests for forming a co-op for our group continue to come in. I will work on this in May when I have some vacation time coming from my job. If you have any ideas you would like to share, please send them to me, and when the time comes, I'll notify our "co-op group" as to the suggestions.

Gayla Swint from Fideli Publishing called me to let authors know that Fideli is offering to copyright authors' books for the cost of the copyright even if they are published by another company. The cost for copyrighting is $45.00. Here is an interesting tidbit. Airleaf claimed they were "copyrighting" our books. I looked in my book and saw that it says "Copyright 2006." So after Gayla tipped me off, I went to the website from the Library of Congress and checked. I put the name of the book in, "Straight Wives: Shattered Lives." Well, it didn't really shock me to find that the book isn't listed at all as being copyrighted. To double check, I put in the name of a book published through a traditional publisher and the copyright came up immediately.

This means that there are publishers out there who are lying about getting your book copyrighted. Some of you have gone to companies that tell you that copyrighting is included in the publishing package. According to Gayla, you should receive a letter from the Library of Congress stating this. If you don't have a letter, this is a red flag. Take a moment to check your book in the link below to find out. If it's not there, your book is unprotected and anyone can copy it and say it is theirs. This is another publishing nightmare in the making. If you paid a company for this service and it has not been done when you check, call your company on Monday and demand that it be done or that the money is refunded to you for false advertising. Remember, an ISBN number is not the same as the copyright number.

Here's the link to check if your book is copyrighted:

Simple Search

If you would like to have your book copyrighted, write to Gayla at the following email address: sales@fidelipublishing.com. Fideli will charge you the $45.00 that it would cost you to do it, but they will do it for you and submit all the paperwork without charging you except for the cost. They are doing this as a service to try to help our authors so we are not victimized again.

Or you can do it yourself online if you prefer.

Here's the link to fill out the copyright work on your own:

U.S. Copyright Office

Authors are telling me that they are receiving their books and materials back from Bob Denton as well as Gayla Swint, both former Airleaf employees. Bob asked me to ask you to be patient because he is doing some of this work daily, but he still has a company to run, Mountain Valley Publishing Company, with deadlines to his own authors that he intends to meet. He plans to get to each request in the weeks ahead. If you have an emergency, write to him again and explain. He is being very accommodating in helping our victims. Gayla also has access to some of the books and may be calling you if she has yours to set up a way to return them to you.

In last week's update, I mentioned the website on Bob's website, Books4U, where you can see how your books are being distributed. This caused a lot of anguish to people who saw their books and felt even more helpless because they didn't know how to get the proceeds for them when they sell.

One of our victims wrote to his publisher, one of the major PODer's, about this and received this explanation that he said I could share with the group:

You have to remember that this is POD and, as such, a listing on a website is not an indication of sales or even of the book being stocked. What we have worked out with these distributors is that Ingram would carry a "virtual inventory" of 101 copies of your book so that it would not show an "out of stock" book, which would be an automatic deterrent to prospective buyers. I can understand the confusion, but I can assure you that since your book can be purchased very quickly, I doubt that any of these online retailers have any that are in actual stock.

What this says is that your book may be showing that it's available, but not be available at all. However, this is definitely a way for you to check if your book has been distributed as promised by companies who are selling you publishing packages promising it. If you see that your book is NOT there, then that means you have paid for a service that has not taken place. Let this site serve as a red flag for you.

As we are moving forward in the weeks ahead, I would like to promote our authors who have new books published. I think this is a great way for us to meet our fellow authors and see how diversified our genres are. If you would like to be included in this, please drop me a line with your book and information.

This week, I would like to send our heartfelt congratulations to Airleaf Victim Sarah Harrison, author of You Love Your Daddy, Don't You? A True Tragedy About Sexual Abuse. Sarah joined our group in January after waiting for a book that never came and continually emailing Carl Lau with no response. Due to the sensitive nature of the book, sexual incest, many people in the group where Sarah helps with counseling incest victims were waiting to get this book.

When Sarah and I first became acquainted in January, she shared with me a part of her book which I found horrifying based on her personal experience with incest from the time she was a young girl. As if she had not been victimized enough in her life, now her dream of helping others through her most difficult work of recreating this tragedy in book form had become another nightmare. Once again, Sarah was a victim and felt very defeated.

Sarah decided to publish her book with my new publisher, CCB Publishing. Her book was just released last week. This is the write up from her page on Amazon.com where you can order the book:

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

"Mama, something terrible is wrong with me. There is blood in my panties!"

Those were the words of seven-year-old Sarah. Mama told her she must have fallen or something and not to worry. Sarah went away feeling sad; her chance for help was gone!

It was Sarah's alter, Susie, who had been sticking pencils and other items in her private place. Susie had come when Sarah was only four years old. Susie had become Daddy's 'special' little girl by sitting on his lap. In return he gave her a dollar for any change she had.

Daddy played with Susie's pee pee and it was Susie that slept in the upstairs bedroom with her fourteen-year-old brother. Later in life, two other alters would appear.

You Love Your Daddy, Don't You? is told through the memories of Sarah. It reveals a child's determination to survive despite profound emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. This was compounded by constant neglect from both parents.

About the Author: Sarah Harrison has written several articles for the Women's Institute for Incorporation Therapy's monthly newsletter as well as articles for spiritual magazines. She also volunteers as a mentor in a local school system, helps with special group activities in an assisted living home, and provides guidance to troubled parents and teens on www.experts.com.

After the death of her husband, Sarah Harrison moved from Atlanta, Georgia in 2007 to a suburb near Charlotte, North Carolina to be near her grandchildren. She has joined Harrison United Methodist Church and is active in Youth Group, Emmaus, Epiphany, and Faith Partners.

Sarah was so impressed by the services provided by CCB Publishing that she added her own testimonial to the others on the website. She wrote:

My name is Sarah Harrison, EDS. Having written my first book, "You Love Your Daddy, Don’t You?" In 2006, my goal was and still is to assist others who have suffered from child and sexual abuse in their lives.

The first attempt to publish my book with Airleaf was less than encouraging. They lied to me, took over $2,000.00 of my money and kept my manuscript for almost two years. I felt like giving up and never thought I’d ever see my book in print. However I had many friends and associates encouraging me, wanting to know when they could purchase my book.

This is when my friend, Bonnie Kaye, who has helped other Airleaf victims suggested contacting CCB Publishing. I am so grateful she did because it is like a dream to work with (the owner) Paul Rabinovitch. He renewed my enthusiasm and made me feel good about my book again. He understood my feelings and even helped me reword some phrases when I asked for his help.

When we converse by email, it never takes him longer than a couple of hours to reply even if it is just to say that he’s received my message and will get back to me in a timely manner.

I signed my contract in mid-February, and now before the end of March it is being printed. I have seen the first copy and am so delighted. It has been a true pleasure to work with Paul. CCB Publishing also allows its authors to have their books listed as “returnable” which encourages bookstores to purchase books. This is definitely an added advantage to us authors. I will recommend CCB Publishing to everyone I know.

In our efforts to promote our internal authors, please buy Sarah's compelling story. You can get it at Amazon.com or order it through her CCB website by clicking here:

Books by Sarah Harrison Sexual Child Abuse

Although I try to remain neutral throughout this mission, I feel compelled to tell our authors about the wonderful experience I had publishing my latest book with CCB Publishing. I think it's the best deal with the highest level of integrity and customer service. Please check the website at www.CCBPublishing.com to see for yourself.

If you have any books that have been printed in recent months and would like to share them with our group, please send me the information and I will share it with the group.

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Airleaf's Carl Lau was once the salesmanager for First Books/AuthorHouse. He learned from the best scam artists in the business. AuthorHouse builds a picture that it is out to help your literary career. The average author from AuthorHouse sells less tha 100 books and 95% of their authors never get back their investmant. To make matters worse, they charge authors at least 3 times too much to buy rheir own book(and that is conservative). The whole POD industry is a scam and AuthorHouse is at the top.